Tuesday 25th July 2017
Posted: 25/07/2017 20:09
The day started with some bad news in that a car had crashed at the bend of High Town Bank Road where it has its junction with Low Town Bank Road. The crash resulted in a fatality, so please take care when negotiating this bend. Access to the club was limited for most of the morning.
The flying day started just like many recent ones - low cloud! With the cloud-base too low for glider-flying the Motor Falke took up the challenge and started flying at 11:25, with Bob Beck checking on John Carter. Bob did a further, but later flight with John, interspersed with a flight with Ron Beezer, and one with Roy (from Rufforth). In addition, Paul Whitehead took a week-course member, Rob Hutchinson, for circuit practice.
Gliders were prepped and DI'd, but flying did not start until 14:10. No club single-seaters were flown, but Rob Bailey and Tony Drury each flew their own gliders, with Rob posting a time of 2:26. Flight times prior to 16:00, with little thermal activity, were fairly short, but wave conditions progressively appeared and Will Blackburn and Ronnie Maughen in the DG1000 posted a time of 50 minutes having found the wave and climbed a further 1000'. However, they were beaten in the time stakes by Steve Thompson and Kevin Overidge who cleverly towed into the wave (correction: clever tuggie!) and topped out at 4000' QFE with a flight time of 53 minutes. Ron Beezer and Chris Haresnape also flew the wave with a time of 47 minutes.
So, the Tuesday-evening Group, who added around twenty flights to the day's activity, started their flying in westerly wave, despite very low winds on the ground, progressed into thermal soaring, and ended their evening at 20:45 with several landings on 06 in to the now lively easterly. It's some of the variation one gets at a hill site!
We have also been joined by the Glide Britain team with a Lasham K21, who had a flight today, but will be starting filming the gliding activity tomorrow (or possibly Thursday if the weather doesn't play ball).
And, to end with some further good news, the Astir, KRN, is now back from NYS, and rigged, having had some ballast boxes installed in the front in order to cater for our lighter pilots.
CT
This blog describes a snippet of life at the Yorkshire Gliding Club. Why not take a flight and try it yourself, or we can teach you to fly as a full club member.